Blocking pain
Dr Kenneth Hargreaves, senior researcher at the Dental School at the University of Texas, and his team next set out to see if they could block these newly discovered pain pathways.

Lab work on mice showed that by knocking out a gene for the receptors, there was no sensitivity to capsaicin.

Armed with this knowledge they set about making drugs to do the same.
Dr Hargreaves said: "This is a major breakthrough in understanding the mechanisms of pain and how to more effectively treat it.

"We have discovered a family of endogenous capsaicin-like molecules that are naturally released during injury, and no w we understand how to block these mechanisms with a new class of non-addictive therapies."

Ultimately, he hopes the drugs will be able to treat different types of chronic pain, including that associated with cancer and inflammatory diseases such as arthritis and fibromyalgia.

Chillies, garlic, ginger, tumeric - put their name plus 'health' into Google and you'll find that all herbs and spices have a medicinal action. More about chillies here. I make use of this to deal with pain and nausea. Tastes better that pills lol

So from curries (if your digestion is not to shot already) to gentle teas (slice of ginger, some teabag you like maybe some lemon, or mint?) , its a useful friend in need. And a whole lot cheaper.

It was garlic (huge fresh doses x 3 a day) that enabled me to give up the Gabapentin and Co-Drydamol.

Chillies, garlic, ginger, tumeric - put their name plus 'health' into Google and you'll find that all herbs and spices have a medicinal action. More about chillies here. I make use of this to deal with pain and nausea. Tastes better that pills lol

So from curries (if your digestion is not to shot already) to gentle teas (slice of ginger, some teabag you like maybe some lemon, or mint?) , its a useful friend in need. And a whole lot cheaper.

It was garlic (huge fresh doses x 3 a day) that enabled me to give up the Gabapentin and Co-Drydamol.

And you can make use of the benefits of capsaicin, helping with pain and inflammatin, by using something from the grocery store or garden today. I'm not saying the research is not useful, but these qualities have been known and used for centuries. Where is the dividing line between drugs and natural substances?

the article is implying that BLOCKING capsaicin will lead to less pain - not that adding/supplimenting it will

Click to expand...

Yes, and it seems backwards. There are already topical creams with capsaicin, for pain, and they work. Sounds like a drug company wants to patent another natural substance and then charge a lot more for it. They do say "capsaicin-like", whatever that means.

Here’s how it works: All hot peppers contain a substance called capsaicin. When applied to tissues, capsaicin causes release of a chemical called substance P. Substance P is ordinarily released when tissues are damaged; it is part of the system the body uses to detect injury. When hot peppers artificially release substance P, they trick the nervous system into thinking that an injury has occurred. The result: a sensation of burning pain.

When capsaicin is applied regularly to a part of the body, substance P becomes depleted in that location. This is why individuals who consume a lot of hot peppers gradually build up a tolerance.

This article is so good it belongs in a psychiatric journal. [Sarcasm]

1. Substances that work like capsaicin in the body are associated with pain locations.
2. Removing the receptors or blocking them blocks capsaicin sensitivity.
3. Therefore if we can block these receptors they block pain.

Hype or spin, not science. It could be right, but that is not even close to being demonstrated here.Capsaicin does not cause pain, it causes heat sensations. This treatment might be good, when its developed, at blocking heat in things like burning feet syndrome. Fantastic. General pain though? Show me the evidence.

Yet to be fair this is the work of reporters. They often get these things wrong. We need a published paper.

Heat rubs etc. work by creating such a sensation of heat that the pain perception dwindles.

Don't get me wrong though. Intense sensations of heat are as bad or worse than regular pain. I should know, my burning feet syndrome is now burning body syndrome.

It is fair to say though that substance P is implicated in fibromyalgia, but so is small fiber neuropathy which is thought to be the primary cause of burning feet syndrome.